If you think that AI is everywhere, that’s because it is. AI is here to stay. Those who understand how to work with it will thrive.

Lately I’ve been attending webinars and training sessions about how to incorporate AI into your work life. PlayPlay put on an excellent Content Summit this morning, with storytelling and AI as the centerpiece. Here are a few of my takeaways from the summit:

AI isn’t here to do our jobs for us. You can use AI as a tool to help with content creation, becoming our collaborative partner, or just to cultivate our skills and creativity. It should be embraced and not feared! Natalie Lambert from GenEdge Consulting mentioned that AI gets you to Good faster than ever. Remember it does not get you to Great. That is where you the human enter the picture. You need to work carefully with AI to get the results you’re looking for – constantly refine the input to achieve the output.

The more you train your AI tool, the better it gets. Think of AI as your new intern that knows everything but understands nothing. Yeah, we’ve all had those. AI can search the entire web universe and then throw stuff back at you, but what does that stuff mean? AI has no opinions but you do. It doesn’t know if it is being controversial or politically incorrect. Don’t just take what it sends you and use it verbatim. Introduce your biases and take a stand.

All through the summit, the 80s songs “The Stand” by the criminally underappreciated Alarm (imagine if U2 came from Cardiff rather than Dublin) and “You’ve Got to Stand for Something” by John Mellencamp were going through my head. Both songs urge taking a stand. The Alarm take on injustices and early death in Thatcher’s UK, while Mellencamp looks back on his first third of a century on the earth and encourages the listener to stand for something. Or you’ll fall for anything.

Remember that AI cannot write the story for you but it can help get you started. You’ll need to infuse your own voice. Take that stand.